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The Syllabus
@the-syllabus.bsky.social
Knowledge Curation Done Well. Non-Profit. Podcasts, videos, books, academic articles, and more. Subscribe: https://www.the-syllabus.com/
Dismissed by critics as derivative for decades, this dialogue shows how Nigerian modernism is finally being reclaimed as a vital chapter in global modernism—a reminder of how power skews art history and who gets to define cultural innovation.

With @chikaokekeagulu.bsky.social
The Dramatic Story of Nigerian Modernism - The Art Angle - Podcast Episode - Podscan.fm
Listen to The Dramatic Story of Nigerian Modernism from The Art Angle (44 min) • Published Nov 6, 2025. Nigerian modern art is having a moment. In London...
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November 17, 2025 at 12:02 PM
Tackling filmmaking as an audacious act of problem-solving, this conversation details how the guest directed a French-language film about cinema's revolutionary New Wave—despite not speaking the language.

With Richard Linklater on @nprfreshair.bsky.social
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November 16, 2025 at 2:02 PM
ICE’s growing use of Nvidia’s cutting-edge AI tools underscores its shift to pursuing aggressive immigration enforcement under Trump. This piece shows how private tech giants fuel state-led crackdowns, deepening concerns over authoritarianism.

By @sambiddle.com in @theintercept.com

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ICE Investigations, Powered by Nvidia
ICE’s investigative division, increasingly involved in street-level immigration enforcement, struck a software deal with Nvidia.
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November 16, 2025 at 12:01 PM
Israel is ramping up efforts to expel international activists from the West Bank during the olive harvest. This piece details how this year's harvest has seen a surge in violent settler attacks, military actions, and land closures.

By Maya Rosen in @jewishcurrents.bsky.social

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The Olive Harvest Deportations
Alarmed by efforts to publicize its violence against Palestinians, Israel is moving to expel international solidarity activists from the occupied West…
jewishcurrents.org
November 15, 2025 at 2:01 PM
The push to revive American industry is an ideological project fusing techno-libertarian ambitions with conservative frontier mythology. Our open-access article of the week dissects the "Silicon Prairie."

By Matthew Darmour-Paul in @distinktionjournal.bsky.social

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November 15, 2025 at 12:01 PM
Backed by Peter Thiel’s ideology, this piece details how Lonsdale’s efforts to impose his vision—through homelessness bans, tough-on-crime policies, and an alternative university—clash with Austin’s progressive grassroots.

By @mimiswartz.bsky.social in @texasmonthly.bsky.social

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Inside Austin’s Red Scare
A group of California dissidents settled in Texas’s capital during the pandemic. It wasn’t the right-wing paradise they’d imagined.
www.texasmonthly.com
November 14, 2025 at 2:01 PM
The four-decade endurance of Brazil’s MST (Landless Workers’ Movement) is a patient, durational politics woven through everyday life. Our video of the week positions MST as a model of grassroots resilience and prefigurative politics.

Feat. Alex U. Flynn

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November 14, 2025 at 12:02 PM
The modern obsession with storytelling as a cure-all is under fire. This piece argues that this tension underscores the paradox: while storytelling can inspire, it can also confine, smoothing over life’s disorder.

By @mirias.bsky.social in @eurozine.bsky.social

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Against storytelling
The glorification of storytelling to define who we are or save the planet induces aversion in some: philosopher Byung-Chul Han calls the obsession ‘story-selling’. Do digitally packaged stories…
www.eurozine.com
November 13, 2025 at 2:03 PM
Governments and companies worldwide are increasingly investing in solar radiation management as a "fix" to global warming. Our podcast of the week explores how billionaire-backed research has normalized geoengineering.

With Sofia Menemenlis on @poltheoryother.bsky.social

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November 13, 2025 at 12:01 PM
The story of the Green Revolution is more than one of plant breeding and genetics. From Fordist production and the welfare state to Toyotism and neoliberalism, our Portuguese pick of the week unpacks the capitalist dynamics of agri-food systems.

By Mariana Homem de Mello Reinach

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November 12, 2025 at 2:01 PM
Rejecting nostalgic accounts of the nation-state in postcolonial India, our essay of the week foregrounds the contradictions in elite formation, English’s ambivalent role, and the legacy of Marxist and subaltern thought.

With Sanjay Subrahmanyam in @grantamag.bsky.social

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November 12, 2025 at 12:02 PM
Google has quietly constructed an empire spanning more than 6,000 firms via acquisitions, investments, and partnerships, dwarfing its big tech peers. Our hidden gem of the week exposes Google’s unchecked digital dominance.

By Aline Blankertz et al. at @harvardkennedy.bsky.social

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November 11, 2025 at 2:00 PM
Drawing on the Boggs’ cybercultural analysis, our book of the week reveals how Black radical thinkers traced automation’s roots to colonialism and slavery, seeing cyberculture as a site where labor, ecology, and race collide.

By Brian Bartell on @uminnpress.bsky.social

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November 11, 2025 at 12:30 PM
Fashion is a political weapon, armor, and act of personal resistance. This panel unpacks how individuals navigate power through clothing in a world marked by surveillance, gender norms, racial tensions, and shifting boundaries of self-expression.

Feat. Liz Collins et al.
- YouTube
Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
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November 10, 2025 at 2:03 PM
TikTok is rewriting the rules of attention and economic power. This piece argues that its algorithm doesn’t follow you; it learns you in real time, serving addictive micro-content while collapsing aesthetic diversity into algorithmic sameness to sustain engagement.

By Anonymous
The Interest Graph State
How Recommendation Engines Replaced Culture With Calibration
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November 10, 2025 at 12:01 PM
Tracing an arc from Reagan-era conservatism to a nuanced leftism grounded in Marxism's enduring relevance, this interview critiques the failures of neoliberalism and the collapse of leftist political imagination post-Cold War.

With Thomas Meaney in @thenation
The Future of Magazines… and the World
A conversation with Thomas Meaney, the editor of Granta, about literature and the left.
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November 9, 2025 at 2:01 PM
This policy brief indicts US tech giants for enabling Israel’s assault on Gaza, arguing that their AI and cloud technologies are integral to military targeting, effectively automating and scaling violence against Palestinians.

By @marwasf.bsky.social at @alshabaka.bsky.social

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AI for War: Big Tech Empowering Israel’s Crimes and Occupation | Al-Shabaka
This brief traces how corporate complicity with Israel now extends to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide
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November 9, 2025 at 12:00 PM
From mothers of police brutality victims to rural activists and urban students, this working paper shows how these movements expose the militarization of daily life—criminalizing Black motherhood and militarizing schools to enforce patriarchal discipline.

By Izadora X. do Monte

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mecila.net
November 8, 2025 at 2:01 PM
As voters went to the polls in Argentina last month, the legislative elections made the US dollar a referendum on authority versus social rights. Our open-access article of the week traces the long history behind Milei's dollarization.

By Ariel Wilkis & Mariana Luzzi

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November 8, 2025 at 12:00 PM
By centering Latino voices, fostering cultural pride, and holding local leaders to account, this episode examines how grassroots journalism can preserve democracy and bridge gaps in representation for marginalized communities.

With Liliana L. Ruelas

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Liliana López Ruelas: Building Community in Tucson´s News Desert
On April 25, 2023, a phone call from an out-of-state number ended La Estrella de Tucsón, leaving the city without a Spanish-language newspaper. For Liliana López Ruelas, who had spent years as an edit
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November 7, 2025 at 2:02 PM
Though often dismissed as rigid, mathematics acts as a bridge, sharing creativity with the arts while underpinning scientific understanding. Drawing on music, our video of the week highlights the aesthetic potential of mathematical structures.

Feat. @marcusdusautoy.bsky.social

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November 7, 2025 at 12:01 PM
This piece argues that Israel's dependency, rooted in a long history of imperial patronage, underpins its genocidal campaigns. The path to ending Israel's violence lies in targeting the enablers who sustain its brutality.

By Rhys Machold in @jewishcurrents.bsky.social

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The Myth of Israeli Innovation
Israel has long relied on Western patrons for arms and backing—even as it has cast itself as a security “innovator” the West can’t afford to do without.
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November 6, 2025 at 2:01 PM
The reduction of collective life by both capitalist and state-socialist economies to a single criterion excludes the possibility of addressing human needs. Our podcast of the week instead theorizes a "multicriterial economy."

W/ @abenanav.bsky.social on @futurehistories.bsky.social

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November 6, 2025 at 12:01 PM
Marking 50 years since the killing of Pier Paolo Pasolini, our Italian pick of the week revisits Pasolini's Rome, its subproletarian circuits and literary milieu, then sketches his Marxist, anti-consumerist work across his novels, poetry, and films.

By Francesca Torrani

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November 5, 2025 at 2:02 PM
The 1990s “Californian Ideology” has soured, producing the very inequality its barons now flee. Our essay of the week charts the rise of a "Texan Ideology" that connects digital plunder with oil, Christian nationalism, and racial hierarchy.

By Fred Turner in @thebaffler.com

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November 5, 2025 at 12:01 PM